Nick Loughnan laments the dirty state of Central Otago roads and blames the transportation of dairy cows.
The filthy state of the highways into Central Otago caused by the transporting of tens of thousands of dairy cows from Southland for winter grazing in Central has, like the roads, been well covered in newspapers recently.
Every hill and corner from Raes Junction north, through the main street of Alexandra on to the Kawarau Gorge, Upper Clutha, Manuherikia, Ida Valley and the Maniototo has for weeks had a daily coating of cow effluent. And it seems from reported comments that authorities are powerless to prevent this.
Like Southland, Central Otago is also an agricultural region where thousands of stock truck movements are made each year carrying sheep, cattle and deer to saleyards or freezing works.
And all is done without these trails of muck on our roads. So why is it happening now?
There is a simple rule which is well understood by all farmers.
Stock need to be yarded overnight before transport, and these hours off pasture give animals the chance to empty out. Leading up to gypsy day, rural newspapers all over the country contained friendly advertisements from regional councils reminding dairy farmers of their obligations here, but this advice is being ignored.
So what is to be done about it?
Obviously, the solution would be for dairy farmers to play by the rules. Their industry is struggling against a tide of public opinion that sees how poorly intensive dairying is performing on the environmental scoreboard.
Yet Miranda Hunter, their Dairy NZ regional leader, appears keen to defend her farmers over the blame for the trails of muck.
She says "it needs a multifaceted approach to fix".
Indeed. Further "if you want to get to the bottom of this, we need to know what the problems are".
The problem is what is coming out of cows' bottoms and ending up on our roads, Ms Hunter.
The suggestion is that everyone else (trucking companies, district and regional councils, and ultimately ratepayers) should somehow also be responsible for disposing of this "multifaceted" mess with the construction and maintenance of a network of roadside effluent dump stations.
Kind of them to want to share it all around, but perhaps we should just insist that stock effluent belongs inside the farm gate.
The dairy industry could do itself some huge favours by getting this sorted before next gypsy day. And perhaps our road transport regulations should be revised just in case they don't.
- Nick Loughnan is from Galloway, near Alexandra.
